The ROBLOX Code: Before the Code 1: Overseer's Eye
by GreatOverseer
Summary: Before the action sets, before Grean wakes up in the teleporter room, this is where it all began.
1. Chapter 1

A chicken sat in a tree. This was rather odd, because in my experience chickens never flew. They just fluttered and looked at you in ways that made you feel like you were being drilled through. The chicken in the tree squawked. A person in a black hoodie with cargo pants and a bandana around his arm stepped out, killed the chicken, and walked on through the pine forest. You may have guessed already that this is me. The reason I wore a hoodie is that I was on the run at the time. Remember, Minecraftia is only a small planet in a universe of others. But yet, we are picked out to be attacked by the most wealthy planet systems in the universe. Currently, I was running from a team of soldiers from Vortex Security, an army from the nearby planet of Robloxia. They all wore yellow or another bright color, which made them easier to see. Plus, I knew the terrain well, well enough not to get shot at easily. But they were, if I may admit to saying so, very good shots. I was hit in the leg once and was knocked out and dragged to their camp. Ending up to be alive after all, I killed the guards and set off on my own, on the run again.

I'm not a Minecraftian. I am a Robloxian, but I had been in Minecraftia since I was very, very little. I knew many Minecraftians. Some I was even friends with. Then Vortex Security came. They started to mine for the valuable Netherrack, End Stone and Soul Sand inside the planet, materials exclusive to Minecraftia. The Creepers and zombies had given them some trouble for a while, but, then again, they were Vortex Security, and they always had another trick up their sleeves. They had attacked the city that I lived in at the time, Obsidian Falls, and stole our only superweapon: the Biome Buster. This they used to wipe out most of the mob spawners on this side of the planet's surface. We were safe from mobs, but Vortex wasn't done with stealing our technology. They had stolen, before I lost track, all of our Redstone storage containers, all our crafting tables, and all our TNT. They used this newfound weaponry to launch a ground war against the creator, Notch. The battle had gone on for several weeks before I finally started fighting myself. Late in the dead of night, when the Vortex Security leaders were asleep, I stole into their tents and slit their throats with my iron sword. Then I fled.

My name is Overseer 2, and this is my story.


	2. Chapter 2

I ran through the pine forest. It was dark, I hadn't eaten in several days, and I was beginning to see hovercraft in the sky, just ahead of me. I'd fallen into their trap. Admittedly, it was a fairly badly-developed trap; one does not simply hand a buttload of hovercraft in the sky for their quarry to see. But this was Vortex Security. They always overreacted to things. A Vortex troop stepped out of the shadows of a looming, fat pine, and I attacked that target. Flipping up on a branch, I kicked the man in the chest and he fell down like a wet reed. A second man came from the first man's place. He was holding a gun this time, and grinning triumphantly.

"Ahaha, look, I got 'im," he crowed. But I was already gone, up the tree he was under, then launching myself from the top branch into his head. It sank down into his chest, and he died instantly. I kept on running, with the stolen gun and my iron sword clutched in my hands.

Emerging unexpectedly into an open clearing, I swore and looked up. The hovercraft had seen me, and were bearing down. I swallowed. I knew how to do this. As the hovercraft were meters from the ground, I dodged out of the way, landing on the ground with a skid, getting up, and running past the craft. They couldn't turn up fast enough. One crashed, and the rest were caught in the resulting explosion.

"Nice job, Overseer," a voice came from my side. My friend Ketsuban came out. He looked like a Robloxian. He had, in fact, been a Vortex soldier before turning and joining me in my runaway. He was not the brave warrior he would become in the next few years. He was a small, over-confident person, who always did the right things at the wrong times.

We set about creating a camp out of wooden blocks (at least I did, Ketsu was inexperienced with crafting wood). After our work was done, Ketsu slaughtered a pig that had amiably been crossing our path, oblivious to our presence. I wondered if the pig's death had been painless. That reset tool Ketsu had used looked near-instantaneous. It even, after the pig had been dead for a while, cooked it into roasted porkchops.

"Man, Ketsu," I said as we ate around our Netherrack campfire (the only block of Netherrack we owned between the two of us). "This is great. Where did you learn to cook like this?"

"Ahhh, the Iron Cafe over on Venezia," Ketsu said knowledgably. "Took an internship there when I graduated from Robloxian Jr. High School." He frowned slightly. "I had a degree in cooking, plus one in rugged adventuring and survival."

"I singlehandedly stormed a Creeper nest when I was ten Minecraft years old," I laughed. "You jelly?" Ketsu appeared to consider this.

"No," he finally replied, "I am most certainly NOT jelly." We both broke out laughing.

"So did you hear about the Yogscast thing earlier? They were telling about Napalm Bombs and stuff?" Ketsu nodded.

"Yeah. I heard Commander Queeba discussing it with a lower official. What's up with that?"

"Well, Vortex is sort of stealing our stuff. The Yogscast HQ is in Snow City, clear on the other side of the globe, but, you know, if Vortex Security hovercraft can go that fast, they can round the bend in a few days. Then, we are doomed."

"You think?"

"Oh, yes, I think." I took my last bite of the hearty pork ribs, passed the bones to Ketsu, and sat back on the ground. "Ketsu, have you ever felt there was a better future for this universe?" Ketsu was silent. Then:

"Maybe. Minecraftia certainly needs one."

I swallowed.

"I was just thinking, we need to get off this planet after saving the world, and then save the universe. It'll take time, and it's a bit far-fetched, but it will definitely be able to be pulled off."

"Maybe..." Ketsu was silent, and this time I realized he had fallen asleep.

)oooooooooooo(

We set out again the following morning. This was the bit of the journey I hated: the morning after. For one, there was always no food in our chests; every time we put a chest of food out, some mob always eats it. But, hey, at least it never ate us. And, if it did try, there was always Ketsu's laser weapon. That thing burned like Nether.

"So, how many days will it take to reach Snow City," Ketsu asked me during our fourth hour of hiking. The terrain was still light, warm, and breezy, as we were on the more tropical side of the planet, about a thousand miles away from the Great Jungle.

"You know, I think we're gonna be hiking for about a week," I said.

"Meh," was the response. The day went on.

That afternoon, at about 3:00 Minecraft Time, the terrain took a slight change. The ground became harder and more rocky. Fewer plants grew. In the far distance were the tall, aggressively spiked bodies of mountains. This was the range known as Murdock's Bane. Nobody knew who Murdock was, but they all, by now, knew what his bane was. Hours passed, and the ground sloped gradually uphill. It rained more than one time during our hike, and Ketsu kept dripping huge dollops of water onto the ground. Seconds would pass, and the puddle would be frozen.

"Well, I would say," I noted, checking my compass, "that we are about twenty minutes from the first slope of Murdock's Bane."

"Great!," Ketsu said, cheerily.

Just then, there came the sound of pistons. We looked behind us to see what looked like a large and angry bullet train going at a super fast pace from behind us. It was trying to run us down. Ketsu and I acted at once. We both lunged to the side, grabbed onto the inexpertly placed ladders on the side hull, and hung on as the train curved on the tracks and rocketed down a different way. Now there was snow, and hail, but it fell onto the front of the train and shattered before it could hit us.

Climbing up to the top, Ketsu and I could see what this train was. The big V gave it away at once. It was a Vortex Security cargo train, made out of metal and glass blocks. The inside was probably lined with Obsidian for protection. A hatch in the ceiling! Ketsu and I opened the hatch, and fell into a dim room. There were seats in that room, and on the seats were a number of Robloxians. They were not Vortex Security people, but normal users. They were dressed in rough (not always, but for now) clothing, and had various levels of health draned away. I was still getting used to having the term health applied to my well-being, not just the Minecraftian system of "hearts".

"Hey, it's two usahs!," a voice cut out. It came from the tallest Robloxian. He wore a headband of metal around his head, with various playing cards fastened on in an orderly fasion. This, I decided, must be the legendary Fleshjigherta I had heard about on my runaway. He made videos for the Robloxian social network Bloxcore.

"Hey, is that Fleshjigherta?," I said quietly. Fleshjigherta nodded, and said, "Been stuck here on this rock for ages noo'. Could use a li'l rescuin' here!" The others raised their hands and shouted in approval. A Vortex guard came in at that moment.

"Hey, would you quiet do-" he began, but was killed by Ketsu in an instant. He signaled to the massed prisoners. "Get up," he said urgently. "The rest of the guards will be around for patrol. One of you grab his gun, another grab his Keycard." Fleshjigherta grabbed both, lasered his way through the door, and beckoned to the others. I pushed ahead of him.

"No," I ordered, "it's too risky." We all grabbed weapons from the room we had just arrived in, which was an armory. I also changed into a Vortex uniform, just for the bits when I would have to sneak.

Using the laser guns, we burned through the end wall of the compartment (in my mind, compartment number one) and were faced with a narrow divider seperating compartment number one from compartment number two. The land below had become dangerously rocky, and stretched far below our feet, to where the fog enshrouded it in white. A fall from that height, even for a Robloxian like Flashjigherta or Ketsuban, would be fatal.

"Okay, everyone out, single file, move out!," Ketsuban yelled like a drill sergeant. The prisoners (well, ex-prisoners) moved across the divide. Snow spattered across the sides of the car. The heights the train was climbing to seemed impossibly high. The tips of the mountains were a mere hundred meters above. Reaching the end of the divide, Ketsu, sliced a hole through the wall with the laser weapon he carried. I unslung my iron sword and stepped cautiosly inside the car. It was darker than the prison car, the only light coming from a metal cage with small fire plumes coming off it at odd intervals. A Minecraftian suddenly loomed out of the shadows. It wasn't alive, but a zombie. The cage was a mob spawner!

"Laser through the bloody thing!," I shouted to Fleshjigherta. There was the smell of ozone for a second, but the laser's scorching yellow beam made no mark on the metal. Nether!, I thought. So the cage was made of iron ore. No matter. Good old mining would do away with it. My iron sword would do quick work of it. Circling around zombies in the pitch blackness, I hacked at the cage. It started to bend under the blows I was giving it. Finally, it broke. The zombies, who had been pouring out at a considerable rate before, now dwindled in number. The last zombie, of questionable skill, was hacked into pieces while standing on the body of its fellows roaring like a great ape.

"Swaggin'," Ketsu said, grinning. "Let's move on."

The next part of compartment number two had an eerie green glow in it. I soon relized that was because someone had placed an Enchanter in it. An Enchanter is a corrupted species of Enderman, bent and stooped. It has evolved, over its time on Minecraftia, to live in dark places, such as forests, and for the smell it gives off to be identical to the smell of leaves and pine needles. In other words, it is a master at disguise. When it is confined, it gives off an emerald glow from its eyes and mouth. It invariably wears a stained and ragged robe over its skeletal torso and legs. This is the monstrosity we were confronted with in the next part. Ketsuban stared open mouthed, then fired the laser point blank between the Enchanter's eyes. The hideous monster's head exploded, and the body toppled, now decapitated. Green, glowing gas flowed out of the stump. This was nerve gas. Two prisoners fell, dead on contact. The rest of us flattened ourselves against the two walls. When the gas had subsided, we stepped out into the gloom. Placing a torch hurriedly, I cut a hole in the wall ahead of the corpse, and found myself eye to eye with a steel golem. The enslaved steel golem's head was staring blankly into nothing, apparently unknowing of the world around.

Sneaking quietly around the form, I found myself in an entire row of deactivated steel golems. They were like worker drones in a Creeper Hive, waiting to be released for duty. I silently put each one out of its misery with a sword strike to the neck, then, as the last one was killed, burned a wide gash through the next wall-and saw nothing unusual. Well, not unusual in the sense of no hostile mobs or crazy mutations or iron and steel golems (iron golems are like steel golems except they never sleep and they are much nastier). Instead there were a team of Vortex Security navigators and technicians, standing or sitting around, laughing as the view from the large windows in the front showed a blighted winter landscape. Apparently they had discovered Jebweiser, for they had it in large mugs on their control desks, and were taking big hearty swigs while laughing and joking around. All the activity stopped when Ketsuban, the prisoners, and I entered. I was at the forefront, with my iron sword clutched in my hand agressively.

One of the technicians set down his beer and turned. He took out a packet of biscuits and fiddled with it nervously. He finally spoke after a while of fiddling with things nervously. "So, uh, where to now, captain?"


	3. Chapter 3

Snow City was just pulling up beside out viewing ports when the broadcast came over the airwaves.

"Vortex Troop and Supply Train Number 146-A, you are ordered to do a cargo and passenger check! This is Leader Queeba speaking!" I picked up the hand comlink system on the dashboard and shouted back, "Bite my Nether, Griefer!" There was a long pause.

"I see we have an imposter," Queeba said, amused. Then the radio cut to static. Everyone in the control room held their breaths. A siren was heard, and then the TNT came raining from cannons on the far trackside. The cab at the very back was hit by a TNT blast and shook away from the rest of the body. Then the cab right behind the control room was hit. We felt the shockwave and scrambled for an emergency exit. The buildings of Snow City were becoming extremely evident now. I rushed for my laser cutter, made a glowing, molten hole in the glass window up front, and scrambled out. Destroying the track curve in front of the train, I hurriedly placed more, straight tracks, until we were far off the beaten path. The cannons couldn't function, without a quarry, so they hung lifeless at the sides of the track we'd just skipped. I suddenly ran out of tracks, and we crashed into the side of a large, bedrock building. Of course, there was absolutely no damage to the building (lucky buggers), but the train car smoothed itself out against the wall like a banana. When the dust had cleared, all there was to be seen from our vantage point, running through the glass windows and across the snow-covered ground, was a brand new tiling addition to the outside of this otherwise drab and dull building. Fleshjigherta sighed in relief.

"Aye, that were bloody close, that were," he noted.

"Come on, the Yogscast HQ is nearby," I shouted. "I can see it right now!" We set off at a mad dash toward the distant building. We had no sooner gone than a wave of Vortex Security troops came at a run out of an alleyway, and soon came beside us. All ten of them raised their laser rifles. Fleshjigherta fired wildly into the crowd. Several fell; the rest moved to our front and started picking off the head runners. I wasn't killed, but injured. A laser seared my left arm, and I dropped the gun I was holding. I compensated for the pain by leaping up, landing on a Vortex troop, and scything his head off. "KEEP COMING!," I screamed. now, with only six members against at least two dozen of our group, the troops ran for their lives. We didn't stop to check whether they were running from us or something else; we just ran for our lives. The Yogscast building was straight ahead. White-hot exhaustion crept up on me. As we reached the glass doors, I took the only epic route I could: I kicked the door inward and charged with my sword in hand. The troops inside scattered. I killed a few, and the troops that were huddled over in one corner soon died, as well. Someone threw what could be generally described as a Molotov Cocktail into the doors behind us, and we were blocked in by fire. Good. now nobody could come in and kill us from there.

The lobby of the Yogscast building was lavishly decorated. Glowstone bulbs covered the ceiling. Some were cracked and leaking glowing sand from the laser battle. The rest were functioning perfectly. I motioned for two of the more accurate Robloxians to aim and shoot at the remaining lamps. Soon the lobby was cast into darkness. The only light was from a torch that Fleshjigherta had in his hand.

"Follow me," he hissed. "I think I see tha elevator." We crept silently through the inky blackness, towards a set of piston doors. When the redstone switch operated, we squeezed into the elevator, all twenty-something of us. The jerky motion of a piston elevator started, and we all tensed. The lighted glowstone panels on the doorside wall counted up one by one. I marveled at Yogscast's ability to create things like this.

The piston doors opened onto Honeydew's office. The man himself was sitting, tensely, in his swivel chair. He gave an audible yelp when he saw us, then spat in fury.

"ESGRGSDJDGJSGASDG," he screamed and leaped onto the nearest Robloxian. "ERGASDSFHSDHSFGSDFGSD!" Ketsuban backed up a few paces and raised his laser. The crazed Honeydew whirled and pinned Ketsuban in a chokehold. "SAGRAGAGAGAFSFGDHSFGHDS!," Honeydew screeched into Ketsuban's face. Ketsuban hit him with a fist and the dwarf sprawled, only to get up again with malice and insanity in his eye. "ERGAST!," he sprayed, then backpaced and leaped out of the huge window behind him. But already more crazed Minecraftians were pouring out of the lifts on all sides. They spat and screamed and held their hands out in a mad dash to the Robloxians, and me.

"Hurry," a voice yelled from the lift we came through, and Xephos, the bearded leader of Yogscast, stepped out with a bow and arrows. Several Crazed fell with the arrows protruding from their skulls. "I know why you're here, Overseer, and I think I can help. But first we need to get out of this mess." We all acted as a single organism, killing from all sides while moving in a mass to the lift that had so far not had any Crazed in it. The lift was almost near us when a Crazed grabbed Fleshjigherta by the throat. We all watched in horror as Fleshjigherta's spine and head came out with a wet squelch. The Crazed felled a few more with swings of the dead man's vertebra. The lift doors were almost closed. With our last ounces of strength we made it through, slammed the doors, and pressed the button for the roof. This was going to be a very long ride.


	4. Chapter 4

Sissory cut through the thick, vine-covered forest with his Sword of Ages, almost falling to snares twice and carving deep gashes in the earth beneath him. He didn't care; he was too embroiled in his own matters to focus on what the immense and powerful Sword of Ages was doing to the ground beneath him, which was lacerating to the point of breakage. Nevertheless, he was an Ultra, and Ultras did that sometimes (most of the time, but Sissory was too vain to admit it).

Ultras were not gods; they were not godlike; they weren't even tall, broad, and strong looking. They had powers that marked them at birth as belonging to another race of beings. It was slightly insane and a life of high adventure and danger. Sissory liked that about life: it was dangerous, and paid well. Not like the lives of those silly Minecraftians; their lives were too… dull. He'd tried being a Minecraftian, and then tried to commit suicide, but held back when he realized how rich he could be when he was on two legs and still working properly (in other words, at all).

Sissory tried to balance on a clump of stone to gaze out at the bulk of Snow City. This he did perfectly, as he was an Ultra. He zoomed his vision in to a great extent, and sighed. The sons of bitches were on the roof. Well, his job was in front of him. He could smell moneys ahead for sure this time, no mistake. He'd nab them as they ran to their matchstick of a vehicle. Simple. He didn't see the Crazed who had the same idea.

) ooooooooooooooooo (

I was sweating. The helicopter had landed on the roof of the Yogscast Towers. Xephos had radioed in from said roof, and the craft had whizzed down like some demented boomerang, to where it sat like a beetle with wings spread open. Xephos came down from where he was talking to the captain, a rather odd man in himself. He had pure white eyes, as though blind, and a thin, almost ghostly body. He was known to the world as Herobrine, which made me think of the ocean, seeing as he had a brine in his name. He was somewhat nice, but distant to the world.

"Herobrine," I asked as the craft ascended (we had already made it inside, out of the way of the Crazed, although we had heard a disconcerting thump from the back directional fin). "What is going on?"

"Nothing," Herobrine said, "just docking at Arroq Statol, then taking a passenger ship to Arriba, then… who knows where." He gave the universal sign that meant "don't ask me".

"You're also gonna meet Builderman," Xephos said, swinging down from a beam on the ceiling. "You're a very lucky little Robloxian, y'know." He jabbed a finger at the viewscreen. "Now, see this greenish planet?" He poked at a greenish planet. "That's Minecraftia, where we came from, and where we might come back to in time. Now, see this bacon-colored planet ahead of us?" He jabbed at a bacon-colored planet ahead of us. "That's Arroq Statol, the first planet of Freemesh Space, which is really, really big. On that planet we will meed Builderman and embark upon the Builder, his passenger ship that can, apparently, get us to Arriba, the desert planet next to Robloxia, then to Robloxia itself through our very efficient spaceport links. Then… who knows. There's millions and millions and billions of light-blox of space at hand, and with a fast ship and loads of time on our hands…"

"Arroq Statol is pretty rough, though, as is Arriba," Herobrine said, his eyes glowing slightly in the half-light of the ship. "You need a weapon that doesn't involve hacking and cutting. If you meet a man with a blaster, who cares if you have a stone or iron or even a diamond sword. He'll burn you with his lasers and blast you with his guns anyways." Herobrine stood taller. "I'll teach you how to handle a M-Bolt after we dock. As of right now, if we are threatened in any way, stay the hell out of all our ways, and that's an order, understand?" I nodded. This would, like the elevator ride from earlier, be a very long trip.


	5. Chapter 5

Sissory clutched at the fin as the ship rocketed through the sky. He'd thought this would be easy, but in fact it wasn't. He was now hanging over infinite space as the ship he was clinging onto roared through the non-air at a speed which even he thought to be phenomenal. The Sword of Ages hung limply from his hand, and so almost was released by him twice, but he had caught himself just in time both times. Just go find me a nice, big, comfy island to fly out of the ocean any day, he thought. Just get me off this nightmare.  
) ooooooooooooooooooo (  
We docked at Arroq Statol as dawn broke. It was an interesting sun that climbed over the rim of this somewhat irregularly shaped planet. It burned with red on the outside edges, blue in the mid ring, and a blinding green in the center, almost like a jawbreaker when you cracked it open. And it rose so fast. Arroq Statol's day was only about eight hours, so it was daylight for four hours and nightlight for four hours.  
The people there were some sort of Minecraftians, but their skin was an almost Netherrack-like reddish color. They had big heads like Iron Golems, but no noses, and had broad, flat feet that they used to climb the rocks of Arroq Statol's mountains. They spoke passable Normalite (the Minecraftian trade language), but a guttural rumble suffused every syllable of their voices.  
I always found it hard to deal with new species, like the Ender Men, from End, the pale dwarf planet that, every year, merged atmospheres with Minecraftia and summoned a horde of ferocious Ender battle dogs and Ender Men. But these people were sort of hard to deal with. They were the first species I had made contact with since Robloxians and Vortex Security, and they were, as Herobrine had said, rough. They mauled each other when a transaction went wrong, which it most often did at the trading ports, seeing as the Arroq didn't know what a gold ingot was, wouldn't take armor as a gift, and could snap a diamond sword with their bare hands if provoked.  
"Arroq people don't need blasters, y'know," Xephos said casually as we disembarked the vessel. "They have hands like big ol' sledgehammers. They'd break a blaster before they'd fire it." He passed an Arroq, who gave a friendly wave, as the Arroq, no matter how mean they were in person, were always gracious to the tourists.  
"One thing to remember, however," Herobrine said, in a matter-of-fact tone. "Don't corner an Arroq, they're pretty nasty with their fighting styles. Fight dirty to fight tomorrow, they say."  
) ooooooooooooooooooo (  
Sissory stared at the desert waste he had ended up in. It was pitiful, really, to see how stupid most races were. They still used ships, when a flick of the hand could turn them into rockets of doom that sailed for light-blox at a time. A flicker of erratic movement caught his attention. A stumbling, groping figure lurched across the eerily lit gangplanks. Where it stepped near a group of spacers, the group panicked and ran, but the thing leaped on one and pinned it to the ground and ripped its head off and ate it, and did the same to the next man, then the next. Some powerfully built natives tried to stop it, but they too were overwhelmed and killed. Sissory leaped off the fin of the benighted hulk he had came here on, and approached the figure. It turned. Sores and blisters covered its face, and its teeth showed through one ragged cheek. Sissory knew this apparition, something called an undead body, or Crazed, or zombie, or Agrm in the far outer edge, where they mined silicon and shine and glitter, and where many spirits roamed. His master would be pleased to see a Crazed this far from the wave's point of origin.  
"Slave," Sissory intoned. The Crazed turned. "Bring him. I need to see him and report." The Crazed turned back, and a shadow appeared in front of it. The shadow unfolded, grew larger, glowed with a darkness. A crown of scarlet crystals grew on its shadowed head, the only really tangible thing on this nightmarish man who grew from the dark to a towering height of eight feet. Wisps of dark fire swirled off his shoulders. His eyes blazed red. The body turned solid; the man fell to his knees. A pair of dark glasses winked into being over the momentarily exposed eyes.  
"Sissory of Minecraftia," the master said, "what's the news now? I'm kind of busy at the moment rampaging across Spawn World, but we may be able to discuss this matter over drinks, how about it?"  
"I do not drink, master," Sissory said meekly.  
"Bah, nonsense, man," the master said derisively. "My pores scream for beer. Come."  
They were in a tavern on Venezia in the blink of an eye.  
"So, what is the news, my friend?" the master asked. Sissory took a sip of the blue alcoholic beverage in front of him, and decided that he indeed liked to drink, after all.  
"The idiots from Minecraftia are escaping. There is Xephos, Herobrine, and many others as well. Someone called Overseer 2." The master bristled with random spouts of shadow and fog, and the sunglasses flashed fiery red.  
"Overseer!," he spat, trying not to get it in his drink and recoiling his glob of saliva a split second later, then looking at Sissory with barely concealed rage. "You're sure?"  
"Err, quite," Sissory replied, glancing around. "What's so important about Overseer? He's just a freak with an iron sword."  
"Just get him," the master said through gritted teeth. "I literally do not care how, when, or where, just do it, and kill him only when you have brought him to me and I have fulfilled my purpose. My vengeance is yet to be sated, Sissory! Hop to it!" And Sissory was once more on the desert planet, with new orders, a new goal, and a new taste for beer.


	6. Chapter 6

The Crazed swarmed inside the dark caverns. They did not waver in their attempts to kill everything in their paths. Refugees scuttled around corners, zombies met their fates, spiders swung into traps by their ropes of string, Ender Men tried to fight back but were quickly jumped on and overwhelmed. Crazed screamed towards a makeshift barricade created by the largest group of Mobs. The Creeper on the top of the tallest tower of debris and dirt blocks leaped down to kill them-and was violently thrown back over the wall as the Crazed below swelled in a vicious, writhing wave, heedless of the press of bodies above and below. They stormed over the walls. Skeleton #1 turned to Skeleton #2 from atop the opposite bit of wall.  
"Those weren't there before," it observed.  
"Like random swarms of whatever," the other said.  
"Any arrows?" the first one asked the other.  
"Sure, tons," the other said to the first.  
"Are they sharpened?" asked Skeleton #3 who ambled over at that moment from the relative safety of the second tallest stone tower.  
"Erm." Skeleton #2 thought. He thought of crispy arrows nestled in his bow, ready to be bacon for the enemy. "Err, yeah."  
"So how's Taiga for vacation?" Skeleton #1 asked to nobody in particular.  
"No good. Hey, did you see that spider? Right over the wall, smack, pow, wham," Skeleton #2 pointed out.  
"Yeah, just got an arm up its-" Skeleton #1 began, but stopped as an insectile screech and a splitting sound ripped through the gloom.  
"Oops, shouldn't have moved then," Skeleton #3 stated the obvious.  
"Ahahahahahahhahahaha," all the skeletons laughed nervously.  
"Knife through butter," Skeleton #1 said. Everyone went pretty quiet.  
"Yeah," Skeletons #2 and 3 said as a Vortex Security soldier flew over their heads with a stick through the face. "Well, we should… be going now okay thanks bye." They hurried off to grab many crispy arrows. After a while of Skeleton #1 standing there, a Crazed pole-vaulted over the wall and lopped off its head.  
) ooooooooooooooooooo (  
Meanwhile inside the walls of the fortress, the Creeper King stared at the advancing Crazed and hissed. He was an old Creeper, tall and proud, and his explosion had built up over the years and made an ominous red glow inside his eyes. They lit like coals inside his green face.  
Beside him stood a man, a Robloxian. He was named Grean. He had wavy brown hair and an average height and build. His eyes seemed to blend in with the surrounding half-light, amber colored twin pools, flecked with speckles of blue in some places. People with eyes like that were descended from Overseers, and were pure Overseer lineage.  
"Do you think, my friend, that the caverns can be evacuated by tomorrow?" the Creeper King asked Grean. Grean shrugged.  
"I don't know, man," he said. "The Crazed can be really, really big."  
"I believe," said the Creeper King, "that you're thinking of… skeleton guards and an army of Iron Golems for the clearing?"  
"If we can get enough iron, which will take me about a day, then we can build our army of crazy homicidal metal men… I mean, if you want."  
"Yes, that would be quite-" The door was flung open, and a grizzled skeleton handler stepped in, followed by an Iron Golem.  
"Found him in the Catacombs," the skeleton (who was Skeleton #3 from earlier) said.  
"He's a bit… odd around the eyes," said Grean suspiciously.  
"I know, sir," Skeleton #3 replied. The golem was, indeed, a little green around the gills, literally, and emerald light spewed from his sockets. "We in the Skeleton Brigade think it's some sort of ancient Golem magic, see, that… that…" He gestured at his shield, which was dripping bits of molten metal onto the ground.  
"Okay, he's in," the Creeper King sighed. "We could clear out a whole bloody biome with that thing, so we can definitely clear out a cave full of Crazed."  
"I'll bring up front guard with you guys," Skeleton #3 said. "The rest of the Skeleton Brigade will just sort of… trail and pick off the laggers, if it's all the same to y'all."  
"What about Good Golly Golem over there?," Grean said, pointing to the Golem who was burning a hole in the floor.  
"He'll be at the way front," Skeleton #3 said. "Now, if we're going to move like you said we would, we should do it now."  
The Crazed swirled around like water in a toilet as Grean barged out with a flamethrower and lit the gloom with greasy fire. Some caught, some dodged, some just sat there and weren't hit at all for some reason. Grean motioned for the others to follow him, and he and Skeleton #3 carved a path in the rushing crowd of insane undead. Skeleton #3 carried a double set of bows, and pulled each string back with his shoulder blades instead of his hands, which were occupied.  
A whoosh filled the air. Good Golly Golem sailed over their heads and flew with a trail of flame down the caverns. At the end of his flight path he changed direction at supersonic motion, creating a curving shockwave which arced and spun across the cave. Grean flattened himself on the ground along with Skeleton #3. There was a whoosh, and most of the Crazed were blown back by a second shockwave which curved like a blob of jelly in the air.  
"Okay, get to the other end!," Grean yelled. "I'll hold off the ones still here!" He slashed the crowd with the flamethrower's red-hot tongue. Good Golly Golem used his own force to direct a blast to the cave ceiling, which, weakened by the already mind-pulverizing shockwaves from earlier, could have been said to cave in. All the stone blocks shattered, leaving a falling pile of sand and dirt and water, and daylight punctuated by explosions on the surface.  
"I think the Golem wants us to get on its back," Skeleton #3 said as Good Golly Golem descended in a graceful landing on the smashed debris. The remaining Crazed leftover spread their mutated arms, flaps of skin flipping around in the breeze, and wafted up to higher vantage points. Grean and Skeleton #3, Creeper King clinging onto a shoulder with his legs, were whisked into thin air as Good Golly Golem did a loop-de-loop and, when the loop was ended, shot into the fresh air outside. The winged Crazed flew after, arms outstretched. One detached itself from the crowd and did a wild curve towards Good Golly Golem's head. It landed, tried to rip it off, paused. It tried again. Good Golly Golem's head stayed completely on. With a roar, he gave the Crazed a supersonic uppercut that ripped its head clean off and sent it sailing in pieces on the breeze.  
A big ugly yellow ship sailed past and dislodged a barrage of pulse beams into the crowd of Crazed. A voice cut out of the loudspeaker on the side.  
"Hi, guys, just helping a bit here with those undead, see you!" The ship hummed and turned away from Good Golly Golem. Already more ships joined the fight from the skies. Good Golly Golem made a noise like a car backfiring, and the lasers he was firing into the Crazed in front died down.  
"Quick, we need a new source of ammo while the Golem is recharging," Grean shouted over the sounds of battle. "Creeper King, you can still fire those fire charges, right?"  
"Yes," the Creeper King shouted, "but they each take much energy. Are you sure you want to use them?"  
"I've had enough of that question," Grean replied. "Do it!" The Creeper King took a deep breath and shot a black pellet out of his mouth into the horde beside him. Some Crazed fell, catching others in the blaze and sending them to their dooms. Skeleton #3 started shooting from the other side at rapid pace. Creeper King discharged more fire charges, and they soared in the sky to rest in Crazed crowds.  
Now they were over a burning forest. The Crazed swarmed them at this point. Skeleton #3 was almost de-spined by one particularly brave Crazed, but shot him instead. Good Golly Golem swung down into the fire suddenly, and the Crazed tried to follow, but the Golem was particularly good at being in confined spaces. He weaved and spun through the fire, and the luckless Crazed behind either flew right into it or flew into the ground and were killed again.  
"I think Golem's got enough laser power," Skeleton #3 said to Grean. Creeper King stopped throwing fire charges and sat on Good Golly Golem's shoulder like a wingless, green bird. Good Golly Golem ascended gradually until it was right up in the far sky.  
"Isn't the far sky supposed to be locked?" Grean asked.  
"Yeah, but everything's screwy now," Skeleton #3 replied.  
"Hey," Grean yelled at Good Golly Golem. "Can you see the ship up there?" Good Golly Golem nodded. "Okay, go into the hangar and land, quickly! It's leaving, so we can make a break for it, right?"  
"What about the users below?" the Creeper King asked, looking behind. Already the TNT flew.  
"Ah, they'll be fine," Skeleton #3 said.  
Good Golly Golem landed with a screech that deafened many unprepared men. Since Grean was prepared, however, he and his comrades were unharmed. What they weren't prepared for was the ominous creaking sound from Good Golly Golem's back. Suddenly it cracked. Green light spilled out. Grean stumbled away from the screaming light.  
"Er, what?" he yelled.  
"Overload!," Skeleton #3 yelled just as Good Golly Golem went off in a fireball and the Creeper King was knocked overboard. The ship, forced forwards by the explosion, flew out of the atmosphere and sailed towards Arroq Statol as fast as the eye could register.  
The sound that was instantly recognizable as it passed a noob house on an asteroid in the midspace between Arroq Statol and Minecraftia was "What the fu-" then a long scream.  
The noob poked his head out of his front door, and stared at the stricken ship.  
"Dafuq was that?"


	7. Chapter 7

Grean stared at the spot where Good Golly Golem had exploded, and then stared at the rush of air coming in from the deep reaches of space. He yelled and clung onto the iron bars of the hangar bay as with a ripping noise the front half came off. Arroq Statol's atmosphere was dead ahead of them. If the ship crashed, they would be burned alive by the reentry.

Skeleton #3 knew it, too. He swung on the bars towards an air vent in the ceiling. Grean followed quickly on his heels (hands, whatever you call it), and slid his body in behind Skeleton #3's, inside the air vent. With a bang, the lid closed. They were alone, save for the sounds of rushing air from outside, and even that was muffled. It was very dark, very quiet. Grean dared to move in the cramped space. A rough surface told him he'd touched Skeleton #3's skull. He moved back, and discovered a previously unknown sub duct on his right side.

"Follow me," he hissed to Skeleton #3. He set off at a sort of climbing crawl up the diagonal passage.

There was a crash from outside, and a sound of rending metal. The ship vibrated. Then the noise of crashing stopped abruptly.

Grean concentrated on the corridor ahead, which was now tilted downwards. He let himself slide down the floor until he hit another cold, hard wall with his head. Grean turned like a fish in water and moved down the next corridor. Down here, noises were completely muffled. It was silent except for the clack of Skeleton #3's knees and arms against the duct's walls.

Then, footsteps over his head. Grean realized that there must be a room above.

"Skeleton, can you let me borrow an arrow for a moment?" Grean asked. An arrow was given to him by a bony hand, and Grean began to cut the thin ceiling down the middle. When he was satisfied, he inserted his hands inside the crack and pushed to either side. Light spilled in.

He was in a room, a room with a forge in it, or so it seemed. At least, there had been a forge. Liquid metal spilled from a hole in the wall onto the floor. Grean climbed up into the eerie red glow cast by the fiery substance. Skeleton #3 followed.

At the far end of the room, a vivid red man sat, dead. He had no face, only skin stretched tight against a blank stretch of bone. His hands and feet were long and bony, with bony ridges on the bottom of each finger. A Vacuum Monster.

"He's probably not dead," Skeleton #3 said. The head snapped up. "See?" They ran for it. The Vacuum Monster pursued them down the corridor they had arrived in. The thing wheezed horribly from an invisible mouth, and it didn't stop running. The thing had no room for fatigue. It just followed and followed and followed. Grean ran faster, but soon he tired and slowed. The monster caught up and grabbed Grean with a branch of a finger, turned him around, and hit him hard across the head. In the miasma of sleep, he heard the twang of a bowstring and the thud of the monster's skull splitting in two…

He came to with Skeleton #3 standing by his side.

"Shove off for a while," Grean said. "Where are we now?" They were in a large area of red grass that came up to Grean's eye level. The ground felt hard and solid, and dry as well.

"I guess Arroq Statol," Skeleton #3 replied.

"I don't know where else we'd be but Arroq Statol. Fitting." Grean felt in his pocket for a gun, and found nothing. Oh, Telamon.

"I see a town up ahead," Skeleton #3 went on, "one with all lights in. But, see, I... didn't think you'd want to risk it?" Grean was running towards where he thought he saw lights. "Wait!," Skeleton #3 shouted after him, and dashed on his heels.

Grean could see the town. He had almost made it. Yes, he had. It got closer and closer-

Grean spun out of control, flew into a docking bay full of spacers, skidded on his face across the cobbles, and came to a halt at the feet of an Arroq. He waited for the pain to cease, which took a long time, then looked up, expecting to see a cheerful Arroq merchant smiling at him. But the Arroq was dead...

"What are you doing here?" a voice said from beside him. He looked up.

"Mwuh?" he mumbled. A dark-cloaked man stood, brandishing a big-ass sword and looking none too happy at all.

) ooooooooooooooooooo (

In the marketplace of Arroq Statol, I bought a small roll filled with cheese and walked away smiling to the ship.


End file.
